O’Reilly Spars With Atheist Who Doesn’t Want Obama to Use Bible During Inauguration: ‘You Are in the Minority…Does That Matter at All to You?’

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Barack Obama, left, joined by his wife Michelle, takes the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts to become the 44th president of the United States at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., in this Jan. 20, 2009 file photo. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly on Friday clashed with an atheist activist who doesn’t want President Barack Obama to swear on the Bible during his inauguration.

Andrew Seidel, a member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, declared America is a “nation of laws” and the use of the Bible is inappropriate at a national event. The organization previously circulated a petition to get Obama to abandon the tradition.

O’Reilly said the “overwhelming majority of Americans disagree” and would be furious if the president didn’t use the Bible. Obama will in fact swear on two Bibles — ones once owned by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. — during Monday’s ceremony.

Seidel countered that the “demographics are shifting rapidly,” saying his organization now has 19,000 members and that 19 percent of the country considers itself non-religious.

“Even non-religious people don’t want to boot the Bible — especially Abraham Lincoln’s and Martin Luther King’s — out of the inauguration,” O’Reilly said. “You are in the minority. The folks want the ceremony to include the Bible. Does that matter at all to you?”

Seidel said the “Bill of Rights exists to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.”

“We are a nation of laws, and neither our laws nor our morality are founded on the Bible,” Seidel said. “Religion gets its morality from us, not the other way around.”